Dooley Noted: 10/6/2015
Two major parts of my initial assessment and every subsequent visit include analyses of both breathing and gait.
My patients always have initial shock that I’m interested in seeing these things.
I often get comments, like the following:
“But I breathe every day all day. How could I not be doing it right? I’m still alive!”
“I walk thousands of steps per day. Can you really change the way that you walk?”
Just because you do something often, it doesn’t mean you do something well.
And yes, we reflexively breathe and walk.
But we don’t do this as well as before we had cognition.
My patients see the baby pictures on my wall, performing actions that they no longer are able to complete without compensating as adults.
As cognition sets in, our behaviors are allowed to change from the reflexive stability of the baby to the compensating stability of the older child.
After all, the older child has cognition, and the reflexive stability is overridden by the behaviors they develop as they mimic others.
As I help educate my patients about breathing and walking, they ask me if they have to think about it all the time.
My answer is always the same:
“Yes, at first more often than later.”
I’m walking and breathing right now as I type this. And yes, I am consciously thinking of from where I obtain my breath and how I’m initiating my steps.
After all, I’m a rehabilitative therapist. I’m going to think about these things and how I can improve them in my patients and in myself.
For the recipients of my discipline, they may be too distracted by life events to focus as much as I might.
but a little bit of conscious awareness can go a long way.
The feedback I always get on the second visit is the following:
“I’ve been catching myself doing that thing you told me not to do.”
They’ve been thinking about it, putting the faulty movement into their conscious awareness.
This conscious awareness is the first step toward initiating behavioral change. And movement is a behavior.
So yes, you can change the way that you breathe.
Yes, you can change the way that you walk.
If you work with a movement specialist, you might find yourself getting out of your own discomfort or even preventing injury.
But you may have to think about it on occasion.
As always, it’s your call.
-Dr. Kathy Dooley
